Nasty Women Serve Is Determined To Promote Hillary Clinton's Legacy A Year After She Lost

One year ago today, millions of Americans went to the polls and cast their ballot for the next president of the United States. After a campaign widely regarded as the most brutal and most divisive in recent memory, millions of Americans who supported Clinton and were hoping to see the first female president felt her loss acutely. But on the one-year anniversary of Clinton's concession speech, four former campaign hands have launched Nasty Women Serve with the first Hillary Rodham Clinton Day of Service. It's a tribute to Clinton herself encouraging women to follow through on her urging "to keep doing our part to build that better, stronger, fairer America we seek.”

We wanted to find a way to take a day that could have been about grief and sorrow and make it about hope.

The idea behind Nasty Women Serve was prompted by national tragedy. On Oct. 1, Kate Stayman-London was celebrating her birthday in Las Vegas. That same day, a lone shooter killed 58 and injured 527 concert-goers on The Strip. The former writer for Hillary Clinton's campaign felt "overwhelmed" by the horror. "We just had this feeling of ‘we're gonna go crazy if we don’t make something good happen,'” Stayman-London tells Bustle. So she and three other former Hillary for America staffers brainstormed together and began working on what would become Nasty Women Serve.

Stayman-London says they all missed "how we felt working for Hillary."

Their first event happened on Nov. 8, the one-year anniversary of the 2016 election itself, officially entitled the "Hillary Rodham Clinton Day of Service." And that's by design. Stayman-London tells Bustle they wanted to promote something besides opposition, with the goal of “actively making something good happen and promoting love and kindness, which is so much what Hillary is about.”

The Nasty Women Serve website suggests six ways to get involved, scaled out by time requirements. Asking just 60 seconds is the "Donate" option, which specifically highlights disaster relief for Puerto Rico or giving to the Black Lives Matter organization. After that comes a two-minute commitment to "Call Congress," in this case to protest the "NRA's radical agenda." For interested parties with five minutes to spare, Nasty Women Serve suggests starting a Facebook Fundraising campaign.

Women who can commit an hour are directed to Drop off supplies at a women's shelter. Those with three hours to spare are encouraged to volunteer, whether at a local organization, joining a #resist meetup, or marching to support the DREAM Act. And for those who want some social interaction/commiseration, Nasty Women Serve offers the final "Host a party" option.

Clinton herself is apparently a fan of the campaign in her honor. The former candidate wrote on Twitter: "Love this. What a great way to spend November 8th—or any day, for that matter!"

The organizations chosen by Nasty Women Serve were picked on a three-point basis. First, Stayman-London says, was the imperative to "do the most good." They looked for organizations that needed the most help now. Second, they strived to "be really faithful to the values of Hillary for America and issues we worked on during the campaign.” And finally, the issue of intersectionality was key for the women behind Nasty Women Serve. Stayman-London tells Bustle: "We wanted to be very intentionally intersectional in the issues we promoted.”

Stayman-London says the initial reaction to the Hillary Rodham Clinton Day of Service has been "amazing." She tells Bustle that they've received emails from women all over the world thanking them for this movement and sharing stories of their own service. One woman in Australia hosted a Nasty Women Serve breakfast event. A former Hillary for America staffer started a fundraiser to buy supplies for the women's shelter down the street from their former campaign office in Brooklyn.

It seems many are experiencing the effect Nasty Women Serve hoped to create. As Stayman-London tells Bustle, "We wanted to find a way to take a day that could have been about grief and sorrow and make it about hope."

Through the Hillary Rodham Clinton Day of Service, the Nasty Women Serve organization hopes to "continue to promote her legacy." If they're successful, Nov. 8, 2016, will be the first of many such nationally recognized days.